Case Number 24277: Small Claims Court

AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE (BLU-RAY) CRITERION COLLECTION

The Charge

"How about that?"

The Case

Whatever your feelings on Steven Soderbergh's work may be (there are few
filmmakers who tend to inspire such diverse reactions among cinephiles), there's
no denying that he's one of the medium's most thoughtfully experimental
directors. He's rarely content to deliver a movie without breaking with form in
some way; his cinematic superpower is finding ways to deconstruct (and then
reconstruct) a genre in compelling fashion. In his film Gray's Anatomy,
Soderbergh found ways to turn something as simple as a one-man stage show
(Spalding Gray performing one of his fine monologues) into a vibrant visual
experience. Roughly fifteen years after that effort, Soderbergh returns to the
work of Mr. Gray for the documentary And Everything is Going Fine. Once
again, he avoids convention while delivering something exceptional and
unique.

The last few years of Spalding Gray's life were particularly unhappy ones:
in June of 2001, he was in a nasty car accident, which damaged him both mentally
and physically. He struggled to write, succumbed to his depression and
eventually committed suicide in January of 2004. In attempting to tell his
story, Soderbergh wisely avoids the approach of permitting a bunch of talking
heads to spend the first half praising the man's virtues and the second half
speculating about his demise. Instead, Soderbergh lets Gray himself tell the
story via excerpts from a host of monologues and interviews recorded over the
years.

Though the footage certainly isn't presented in chronological order, the
story Gray tells is. We hear bits and pieces of stories from Gray's life, with a
particularly heavy emphasis on tales involving his parents, romantic
relationships and children. The whole affair is intentionally staged as one
final, intensely personal monologue, and serves as a typically candid, humorous
and occasionally profound examination of life. Given Gray's gift for
storytelling and insightful self-analysis, there's no one else better-suited to
tell the story of his life. Though you may initially be distracted by the
varying video quality of the footage (and the way Gray seems to leap from one
decade into another from scene to scene), it really does function as a proper
monologue of sorts rather than as a 90-minute assembly of personal outtakes.

Though Gray is entirely comfortable with sharing potentially embarrassing
personal details (such as a cringe-inducing but nonetheless hilarious saga in
which the heterosexual Gray's insecurity and vanity leads him to make a valiant
attempt at having sex with another man), there's also something quite enigmatic
about him. In one brief, blunt interview clip, he addresses the camera with a
stern matter-of-factness: "Are there some things I'm holding back that I
won't talk about? Yes." Here is a man for whom seemingly no unpleasant
confession is off-limits (including the story about his unsuccessful attempt to
coax his mistress -- and future wife -- into having an abortion), yet he does
seem to be hiding portions of himself. Even during the interview footage from
his tragic later years, he never really confesses the full depth of his despair.
However, the documentary does conclude with a remarkable (and remarkably
cinematic) piece of footage, a mournful yet elegant admission accompanied by an
unexpected, haunting sound.

And Everything is Going Fine (Blu-ray) offers a 1080p/Full Frame
transfer, which does the best it can with the source material. Honestly, while
pretty much everything is going to look better on Blu-ray than it would on DVD,
And Everything is Going Fine is the rare film that probably didn't really
need a Blu-ray release. Much of the video footage is pretty weak-looking stuff
(I'm talking VHS-quality), with only a handful of newer interview and home video
sequences actually benefiting from hi-def detail. Like Criterion's Blu-ray
release of For All Mankind, it's only able to look as good as the mixed
bag of original elements allow. The LPCM 1.0 Mono track is decent enough, though
some sequences offer stronger audio than others. Nothing is ever muffled or
distorted beyond recognition, though. Supplements include a 21-minute featurette
on the making of the film (in which Soderbergh and others talk about the
decision to edit the film as a monologue and determining which footage would be
used) and a complete presentation of Gray's first monologue "Sex and Death
to the Age 14" (64 minutes). Generous portions of the latter are
incorporated into the film itself, but it's nice to have the full thing
regardless. You also get a trailer and a booklet featuring an essay by Neil
Casey.

There are a number of terrific moments littered throughout And Everything
is Going Fine, but one in particular lingers with me: a scene in which Gray
cheerfully re-enacts a family jubilee to the strains of Chumbawamba's
"Tubthumping." It's a broad, silly moment, almost like something out
of a late '90s Steve Martin comedy. It's the sort of warm, unexpected, honest
memory which seems to define Gray's best work, and a fine example of why And
Everything is Going Fine functions as an ideal swan song for a great artist.
Recommended.